ViRa Happy Spring!!
Navratri is the cleansing and detox program designed thousands of years back for the body, mind, and senses. This tradition is basically a celebration of the change of season, twice mainly once during spring and once during fall. This 9 days celebration, Navratri is the time of cleansing and healing physically, mentally, and emotionally. Navratri is quite the perfect mix of spiritual and scientific rituals that people follow for nine days. This tradition is nearly 5000 years old, since the Pauranic times.
Let’s see this 9 days celebration from an Ayurvedic perspective. we all know that there are 4 main seasons. According to Ayurveda, we need to follow certain routines in each season to prepare our bodies for that particular season. We need a thick layer of adipose tissue to fight cold and dry winter. we don’t need that layer for summer and fasting is the safest and fasted way to remove the access fat stored in the body. Food turns into energy during digestion, our body uses that energy as fuel to perform all the voluntary and involuntary actions and stores the remaining for later use. Most of the time we eat and our body doesn’t use that stored part. Fasting is the way to let the body use all the stored energy and cleanse it from the inside.
Fasting is a cleansing therapy that improves digestion and removes ama (toxic elements) from the digestive tract. Sattvik diet is for healing at the deeper level as we give our body a break from regular legumes. We remove all the regular spices and oils from our diet during Navratri. Satvik diet is for healing the mind and body at the subtle level and helpful for cleansing the organs so that they can function normally. Our body is a complex system of organs and tissues, our diet and lifestyle are two tools we can use to design our health. Feel healthy is much more important than anything else in the world.
During Navratri fasting, people eat selected grains and veggies. I am sharing more info below, please keep in mind that design your diet according to your own body constitution and avoid deep fried food.
Grain and flours – buckwheat, amaranth, quinoa, and barnyard millet.
Vegetables – potatoes, sweet potato, yam, lemons, pumpkin, spinach, tomatoes, bottle gourd, cucumber, carrots. This is the best time to start veggie and fruit smoothies. Use ghee and coconut oil to cook the food.
Fruits – All kinds of fruits are good to eat. Apples, grapes, bananas, papaya, pears, peaches, berries, etc, any seasonal fruit are good for fasting.
Milk & Dairy Products – Milk, yogurt, paneer (cottage cheese), fresh cream, unsalted butter are milk products can be consummed during the fasting season.
Avoid – Wheat, rice, corn, lentils, canned foods, frozen foods, meat, seafood, eggs, garlic, onion, red pepper, hot spices, oils other than ghee, and coconut oil.
